Down with Indie!

Andrew Ian Dodge reviews new 'indie sensations' Elefant, and finds both them and their generic indie support bands seriously wanting.

The gig was opened by two non-descript navel gazing bands (described as music for Guardinistas by Jon P), and then we were treated to Elefant. There is a great buzz about this lot as they are suppose to be the next big thing in indie-tinged pop world. Well from what we saw last night, don't expect much, live at least.

Why does the British music scene contain so many tuneless indie strummers? Every edition of TV programmes like Later with Jools Holland seems to have a quota of whey-faced white guys with tuneless droning vocals accompanied by three-chord strummed guitar and a plodding rhythm. All of them seem to sound exactly the same. And all of them completely leave me cold.

Sometimes I believe that 'indie' is actually guilty of all the crimes prog-rock is only falsely accused of; of being totally self indulgent and boring. But unlike prog-rock, they are also totally lacking in any level of technical skill. Put someone like IQ, or Therion (complete with choir) on Later with Jools Holland and it would blow all these tuneless strummers away.

What is the appeal of this kind of band? Are there some deep subtleties that I'm just not hearing? Or is the appeal based on something other than the actual music?

I suspect it's the latter. Some band's popularity seems to be based on the sex appeal of the singer, or on how well they evoke a sense of adolescent angst. And for some, especially those overrated acts the music critics drool over, I guess the lyrics are far more important than the music. The fact that The Guardian's chief music critic is a rabid Smiths fan points in this direction.

Since the music press has far too much influence in Britain, bands that can't play or sing, but are somehow 'symbolic of mans struggle against his socio-political environment' will get attention, while other far better bands struggle to be heard. Many of these better bands might well find an audience if people were aware of their existence. Meanwhile, most of the bands who do get exposure inevitably crash and burn after a single album, simply because there's no depth in anything they do; there just isn't the musical or compositional talent there to sustain a career lasting more than a few months.